


The Only Thing That Looks Good on You

by Uraunde (rareb)



Category: IZ (Band), K-pop, บังเอิญรัก | Love by Chance (TV) RPF
Genre: 1996, 90ies youth culture, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - High School, Bad boy Plan Rathavit, Classical Music, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Hacking, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love Triangles, M/M, Musicians, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rock Band, Switzerland, Underground DJs, boy band, music school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rareb/pseuds/Uraunde
Summary: In a slightly alternative universe to our own, the pop world of 1996 is on the lookout for the next big boy band to sweep Europe, after Take That has disbanded. All the hottest candidates come from Asia, after South Korea started the Hallyu wave in the late 80ies.Meanwhile, in a renowned music school in a valley in Central Switzerland, two groups of hopeful musicians, one Thai, one Korean, is chasing after their dreams of freedom, independence, music, fame, and, maybe, love?This story is a crossover between three different things. It was inspired by the fashion presented at #LazadaWomensFestival in May this year, which reminded me of the mid-90ies and its different youth subcultures. It also combines two fandoms - 2wish (who are the main characters) and the Korean idol rock band IZ.The characterisation of the Thai boys is based on the subculture their outfits reminded me of when I saw them on the catwalk.





	1. Introduction: About This Story

As the description says, this story is set in a slightly alternative version of 1995/1996. The main difference to our universe is that KPop started in the 1980ies and got government support from around the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. This means that Korean, and Asian, music in general is sweeping over into Europe two decades earlier than in our universe.

This attention to Korean music is mainly due to the success of global superstar Taemin, who has been filling the arenas that in our universe have been filled by Michael Jackson. (You want to know why? Well, firstly, because Taemin gets compared to MJ a lot and he could be this big - but secondly, because I personally think that depending on make-up and styling, Plan can be made to ressemble Taemin a lot - and since Plan always looks different in this story, I plan to use that comparison at some point.)

Almost all locations (basically all the names of places you don't immediately recognise) are fictional as well and only exist in this alternative universe.

It goes without saying that all the boys are born into different families in this story and have had different trajectories in life. (None of them has been alive in iRL 1996...)

**Characters:**

**Plan Rathavit Kijworalak**

Officially, Plan has been sent to the Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium to study the violin.

Unofficially, he is kept there away from his important diplomat family, after nearly causing a major diplomatic incident between several countries.

Even more unofficially, Plan is actually studying the drums, and despite extra-strict curfew rules, he has a thriving career as an underground House DJ as part of a duo with his roommate Gun.

All boys at Engelstalden Kollegium quickly learn one thing: don't mess with Plan.

**Mean Phiravich Attachitsataporn**

When his single mother got married to a Swiss man, then 8-year old Mean was uprooted from Thailand and moved to Switzerland. Through hard work, talent, and dedication, Mean not only made it to the local Gymnasium a few years later, he also became a proficient multi-instrumentalist, who made waves at local music competitions.

He has just received a scholarship by the renowned Stirnimann Foundation, that will allow him to follow his dream to become a classically-trained musician at an orchestra or maybe even a concert pianist, starting with his very first semester at Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium.

Mean really doesn't want to get in trouble.

**Title Kirati Puangmalee**

As the second son of the second-generation Thai owner of luxury hotel Château Royal in Engelstalden, Title has the world open to him - and he intends to make the most of it. A famously laid-back and jovial person, he doesn't take school overly seriously.

He is constantly chasing after the newest World Music sounds, and is a big fan of Reggae, Dancehall, Ska, and Dub, and he plans on traveling the world as soon as he graduates from Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium.

He is also the leader of a Ska band called Monkeyheads.

**Mark Siwat Jumlongkul**

Mark is the son of the chef and the head housekeeper at Château Royal. While he is still officially attending Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium, unofficially, he is running an event management agency and working towards entering the music business himself.

He is also Title's best friend.

You never see him without his pager.

**Gun Napat Na Ranong**

The other half of the underground House DJ duo, Gun is the son of the janitorial couple at Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium, and he has been Plan's roommate for several years. While Plan is an infamous troublemaker, Gun's image, so far, hasn't been tainted by his association with him.

He is seen as a nice guy. Thus, People usually think Plan forces him to help him.

This couldn't be further from the truth, though. Gun loves to come up with new sounds, and he is actually the mastermind behind most of their successful melodies and mixes, while Plan makes the beats.

**IZ**

(from left to right: Lee Junyoung (Junyoung), Kim Minseok (Woosu), Lim Soojung (Jihoo), Lee Hyunjun (Hyunjun))

**Hyunjun:** A guitarist, who has won a scholarship by the same foundation that is also sponsoring Mean, after winning a music competition in Japan, as the first Korean ever. He hopes to finally form a rock band this semester and become a rock star. He is Mean's roommate.

**Minseok:** There is a lot of bad blood and history between the Korean drummer and Plan - not just because they both play the drums, but because of a misunderstanding in the past that has pitted the two against each other.

**Soojung:** A second-generation Korean in Switzerland, whose parents run a Korean-Japanese restaurant in the touristic part of Engelstalden. He is only allowed to attend the Music Kollegium, because it is the closest Gymnasium he can attend. His parents want him to study something serious, like medicine or engineering. But whenever Soojung sings at Open Mic nights at the bar of the Château Royal, a fan club of local girls is sure to assemble and cheer for him.

**Junyoung:** He has been adopted by a Swiss family as a baby, and has learned to play the bass in order to play traditional Swiss folk music. However, his adoptive parents want him to connect to his Korean roots, and thus sent him to Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium, which is famous to attract students from Asian countries. Their plan was half successful: he has made friends with a gang of Koreans. But he still has to remind everyone that he is still Swiss.

Finally, another note on the setting:

The 1990ies were a pivotal decade in Switzerland for several reasons, but particularly because during that time, two institutions that were almost omnipotent in every part of society before were rapidly losing their grip on people: the Swiss army and the Church (in the region where this is set, the Catholic church specifically).

This means that Catholic imagery will be present in the setting - and characters will usually be either critical or callous about religion.

Please note that this is neither reflecting the actors' or musicians' stance on these topics, nor my own. It is simply a backdrop dictated by the setting that I need to build. There will still be many traditions, events, or just decorations as a reminder of how powerful the church once was - and yet, at this point in time, its power has diminished so radically that students won't take any of it seriously.

In this story, if not otherwise specified, English will stand in for German.

Some pictures on what the setting could look like (a mashup of different places in Switzerland):

This story will be very much about music, youth culture, and growing up in the 90ies - so I will probably post a lot of soundtracks and videos. There is also a Spotify playlist I started, that collects different songs from the era and genres people are into. I might separate it into playlists for each character later.

I won't continue this story until I have finished High Energy Collision. I only wrote the opening a few weeks ago to see if the concept works - however, because IZ released their new song yesterday, I decided to post it, in order to support their release date.

Please, give the video a view!

I made the connection between 2wish and IZ totally randomly, because I saw IZ play a busking gig while I was on vacation in Seoul in June, I love their music and I wanted to write them into one of my stories ever since.

But when I saw this video, I began to think that this connection was meant to be: there is Aurora Borealis in the video, and their official colour scheme is blue-green!

Oh, and the official title track of this fic:


	2. Come Back Home

**Late August 1995, First Day of School**

His nose anxiously pressed against the window of his stepfather’s car, Mean increased the volume of his Walkman. The soothing melodies of [Bach’s Goldberg Variations, played by the legendary Glenn Gould](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwas_7H5KUs), filled his ears.

The piano music merged into the back and forth of the spectacular view over Lake Lucerne and the rough, barely carved away rock of the slope-side they were climbing, as the car wound up the tight serpentines into Engelstalden valley.

The LP of Glenn Gould’s recordings was one of the few things Mean was grateful for to his stepfamily in Switzerland. He had found it in the possessions of his stepfather’s father when he passed, a curious find in a farmer’s attic – and a lifeline for an uprooted and lost child like Mean.

Everything else from that family, he could do without – and in fact, he probably would do without them, from now on.

Behind the slope, deep inside the long valley they were driving up into, behind a light forest of dark fir trees stubbornly defying steep cliffs and gravity, and nestled underneath the ridges of green pastures and snow-covered mountains, lay freedom and opportunity.

With the help of his language teacher, whom Mean had had special lessons with to learn German and integrate into his new environment faster when he had first arrived in Switzerland, he had learned to play and master several instruments: the piano, in the footsteps of Glenn Gould, the guitar, and recently he had even started to play the violin with surprising skill for a beginner.

He had acquired the unwieldy foreign language, just as he had learned to speak himself through music. His mellow-hearted language teacher, a middle-aged mother of five, had supported him in his endeavour mostly for free, out of the kindness of her heart, while his own family had left him to his own devices.

Under the ever-misunderstanding gazes of his stepfather and his mum – torn between loyalty to her teenage son from an absent father lost in Thailand, and her new family: husband and two younger sons – Mean had turned to music for escape.

He had participated in all the instrumentalist competitions he could reach by public transport on his allowance. He had taken every opportunity to practice, whenever he found an unattended piano somewhere, or when someone passed him a guitar – and finally, he had caught the attention of the renowned Stirnimann Foundation.

They were granting scholarships and instrument leases to talented young musicians all around the world, and were committed to finance their beneficiaries’ career starts from school up until their concert musicians’ diplomas; on the condition that they didn’t violate any of the terms of the contract related to exemplary behaviour and practice discipline, as well as good average grades in school, and excellent ones in music classes.

Mean had received a full scholarship, including room, board and personal allowance, for the Engelstalden Private Music Kollegium, a boys’ school that offered both a heavy focus on music education, as well as a Swiss Matura degree Type M, that would allow him to study any subject at any university in the country if he passed it.

Even before receiving the scholarship, he had managed to make it into a local gymnasium in his stepfamily’s region, mostly due to his stubborn hard work. He had impressed everyone with his good grades, despite only arriving in the country ten years ago, at the age of eight. By now, he wasn’t just fluent in German, but the local dialects of Swiss German as well, something many foreign native German speakers never achieved.

He would be able to finish his secondary education in Engelstalden going forward, perfect his music skills, and get away from a family who didn’t care about him.

While the car drove around the last corner, the more open plateau of the valley finally came into view. The deep blue sky spanning above it made it look like something out of a picture postcard, cut grass in the pastures drying in the late summer sun, the mountain ridges aligning sharply against the cloudless sky, sublime.

Mean remembered the fight he had had with his stepfather earlier this year.

_I’m not going to pay for such an expensive school. It’s bad enough we are legally obliged to pay for a Matura. You should have chosen an apprenticeship like any decent Swiss guy and earned your own money as soon as possible. Who needs these useless academics anyway? And how will music feed your greedy mouth in the future?_

And then, there had been Mean’s triumphant smile, as he could hold the scholarship letter right under his nose, confirming that all his expenses would be paid and the family would be released of the burden of supporting him any further.

From that point onwards, his stepfather couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the prospect of his accursed stepson leaving. He hadn’t made a secret out of his wish to finally have his perfect little family idyll. The picture of a family, without the thorn in his flesh that Mean represented, the bastard son of his docile, ever-smiling Thai dream of a wife, a part of the package he couldn’t get rid of fast enough, now that the opportunity was presenting itself.

He had even offered to drive him to Engelstalden by car, instead of forcing Mean to take the train and then the Postbus up from the main valley, dragging his suitcase and the precious instruments with him.

Small graces, Mean knew to be grateful for.

His mum had not been able to accompany him, however.

He remembered her tear-stained face as he had hugged her goodbye – just before she was called back to care for her crying baby, the younger of Mean’s stepbrothers whom he would likely not see grow up at all.

No loss there, really.

The lower part of the village of Engelstalden looked bigger than it was, with all its seasonally empty holiday apartments at the entrance of the plateau. Other than these almost ghostly empty streets that only filled up in winter when the Swiss vacationed here, there were a few farmsteads on the floor of the valley, and alps higher up, testament of the traditional village’s reputation for milk, cheese, and dried beef. Afterwards, a few houses for the locals lined the street, some even several stories high, built in the 1960ies and 70ies to accommodate a rising population.

Most of the rear end of the village was where the music played, literally and figuratively. Upper Engelstalden was dedicated to its booming international tourism and resembled an anthill when their car drove into the busy outskirts of it.

Several cable cars, chair lifts and ski lifts led onto the glacier-covered mountains and up to the grassy slopes that would become skiing arenas in winter. At the centre of the tourism bustle was an old grand hotel, built in the 19th century to resemble a romantic castle, recently renovated and carefully maintained, the _Château Royal_.

Mean had heard that the owners of the Château Royal were Thai, a lucky family who had come to Switzerland in the adventurous 1920ies with the former Swiss ownership family. When the Swiss family had lost their only heir to an accident, they had adopted their hardworking Thai servant couple, and they had gone on to inherit the entire business from them sometime in the 1960ies.

The hotel was now run by the second generation, the son of the couple and his first generation Thai wife. They were one of the main reasons why tourism in Upper Engelstalden boomed.

The Puangmalee family had recognised the potential of the rising Asian economies before everyone else in Europe, and using their family connections to Thailand and beyond, they had managed to position Engelstalden on the map for tourists not just from Japan, when they first started travelling overseas, but from all of the booming Asian Tiger and Tiger Cub economies as well.

Their influence could be felt everywhere, Mean noticed even as the car pulled up in front of the School, hosted in the building of an old former Catholic monastery. Several students hurrying towards the entrance where looking distinctly Asian.

The monks had abandoned this building some time ago, and it had been turned into a music school instead. The organ in the baroque church of the former monastery was famous worldwide for its acoustics, and Mean couldn’t wait to hear someone play Bach’s fugues on that fabulous instrument.

Or maybe even attempt to play it himself one day, if he proved himself worthy enough.

Mean knew that the son of the Puangmalee family also attended the Kollegium, as well as kids from other Thai families working at the hotel, or running smaller hotels and restaurants to accommodate the flows of Asian guests. On top of that, the Stirnimann Foundation regularly gave scholarships to students from overseas – and most of them came from other Asian countries.

It would be nice, along with everything else, to be able to mingle with friends who looked like him, not standing out like a sore thumb among the light-haired Swiss kids and the tan offspring of Italian immigrant workers who had long settled around his former school.

The goodbye with his stepfather was as brief as it was cold: a nod, a brisk handshake, and the feeling of relief as Mean watched the red VW golf drive off without him.

Mean turned off his Walkman and lowered the padded headphones around his neck.

He took a deep breath, taking in the aromatic scent of sun-dried hay on the pastures. He listened to the irregular chimes of the cow bells softly echoing back from the cliff behind the school building. The entire valley was never completely silent, he notice, it was filled with the soft murmurs and swooshing of waterfalls rushing down over rough rock walls all around him.

It screamed of an almost stereotypically Swiss idyll, if it weren’t for the Thai tuk-tuk taxis that were circulating on the roads around the Château Royal and the foreign tourism centres, with their little bells, and occasionally blaring bootleg Thai pop music from their cassette players.

Mean’s friends, the few he had left behind at his stepfamily’s village, had had pity with him for having to come here to what they called the arse-end of the world. Everyone there dreamt of moving to Zurich, which already promised big city life compared to the rural calm of the rest of the country – the more adventurous ones naming international Geneva as their destination, despite the obstacle of the French language – and those who dreamt really big were aiming for Berlin, the newly reunited, hip and always moving metropolis of neighbouring Germany.

Being banished to a remote side-valley in the alps sounded like a punishment – though Mean certainly didn’t see it that way himself.

He pulled out the handle of his suitcase, his mum had splurged on one of these new ones with wheels, and quietly started to drag it behind him over the cobblestone leading up to the school’s main administrative building.

The second start to a new life – this time, he would make sure it would be for real.

* * *

Two years.

Two more _tedious_ years, and Plan would finally be free of this prison.

He sat on the sill of his open window, and peeked at the flow of returning students to the Kollegium. Just another hour or so, and he would need to head downstairs to the impossibly uncomfortable church benches for the official opening service, and then…

He sighed.

Maybe he should try to find a way to skip the opening service. It was technically not religious at all, just a ceremony to welcome everyone back, but the school just couldn’t hide its Catholic roots, and if you had a priest wearing some kind of silly robes holding sermons and distributing vague blessings, it was still religious in Plan’s opinion.

Not to mention that horrible organ. That sound was honestly an insult to any sane ears.

Even more technically, the event was voluntary for students to attend. If he weren’t _him_, he could easily argue that skipping it wasn’t really… skipping. But…

Another sigh.

Plan wasn’t a normal student.

They could mince their words any way they wanted, but in reality, he was a prisoner.

He had been stupid and careless four years ago – and ever since, this was his own personal purgatory.

At least that’s what it would be, if everything was… as it looked like.

He was under the tutelage of the school’s headmaster, and lived not in the normal dormitories, but shared his room with Gun, the son of the Thai janitorial couple the school employed. When other students got vacations and free weekends to visit their families, Plan didn’t.

And when other students had a choice to attend the opening service… Plan hadn’t.

If he didn’t attend, he would be cited to the headmaster’s office again, and he would have to explain why he didn’t take his education seriously, an education his important diplomat parents so graciously provided for him. He would have to utter an insincere apology, probably write it out on a paper by hand several times as a punishment – and…

He really rather sat through the service.

At least, the service took a timeslot that he didn’t have any other uses for.

Seeing the new students walk in, with shining eyes, hopeful about the chances this school would afford them… it made him sick.

His eyes fell onto an odd one.

This one was too tall to be a freshman, and with the headphones of his outdated Walkman clumsily around his neck. Yet, he had a sickeningly dreamy expression on his handsome face. He looked Asian, too… but the baggy pants and the oversized polo shirt he nearly drowned in didn’t look like something someone coming in from the home continent would wear.

Plan hadn’t seen him among the kids of the locals, either.

Maybe he was joining one of the upper classes from another gymnasium, or he was Asian-American… Then he must have some kind of musical talent, real or imagined…

_Ugh_, those were the worst.

Sure, you got nice opportunities if you wanted to become an anonymous violin ant in some orchestra or other – the future Plans parents had picked out for him.

But if that was as far from your dream as it could be – there really wasn’t much here to enjoy.

Not… that Plan was _actually_ attending violin classes.

On his first day here, he had found a way to sneak into the administration offices during lunch break – a lucky guess, really. He had feigned needing a toilet break, had picked the lock of the office instead, and had found what he had hoped to find: a running computer, unprotected behind the screen saver – and the password for the student files administration system written on a post-it and stuck to the monitor.

It had taken him not even two minutes to find his personal file and change his musical major to drums, and a few other adjustments of _convenience_.

Four years, and nobody had ever noticed the change.

His first small victory of many.

* * *

A little lost, Mean sat on the edge of his bed in the small dorm room that would be his home from now on. The room still betrayed its monastery origins. It was clearly meant to accommodate the frugal lifestyle of monks. Sitting at the edge of his bed as he did, his knees nearly touched the wooden frame of his roommate’s bed – privacy would be a luxury from now on.

Mean didn’t know who his roommate would be, but the nice secretary who had given him the plan to his room had smiled and said she was sure he would get along with him well.

Wood was the most prominent feature of the room, not just the beds, the wardrobes and the two small desks by the windows were also made of wood – even the floors and the walls had wooden panelling. And as if it was made to fit the theme, when he looked out of the window, he looked directly at the edge of a protective forest – maybe even the forest where the wood for the room originally came from.

What confused Mean especially about the room was the prominent crucifix on the wall over his bed – and the kitschy print of the painting of some kind of Christian religious scene, involving St. Josef working as a carpenter, while the Virgin Maria was watching him, holding baby Jesus in her arm.

It was equal parts disturbing and exceedingly ugly.

Mean had given up on religion along the way.

Back in Thailand, he had been raised in Buddhist traditions, but his mother had converted to Protestantism before getting married to his stepfather – and for Mean, this had been the point where he had lost faith in the concept of religion as a whole. Buddhism had provided solace and guidance as a kid, but the confusion between his native tradition and the foreign concepts of Christianity had made something snap in him.

Reading modern philosophy at school had only reinforced that feeling.

As much as he deeply appreciated the music that had come out of religious practices and sentiments – he just had to think of his favourite composer, Johann Sebastian Bach – living in a room with religious ornaments like this would take a bit of getting used to.

Still, this was definitely better than the emptiness he had felt in his room at his stepfamily’s house, that had also doubled as his stepfather’s office and he had never truly been able to make his own.

It would become his stepbrothers’ shared room, now.

He was silently leafing through the program for his first day here, trying to decide whether he was better off going downstairs and joining the crowd at the church, hoping to meet one of his classmates he could tag along with – or whether he should wait for his roommate to arrive.

The question solved itself before he could come to a conclusion by himself.

There were footsteps outside, getting heavier as they approached, and then, the wooden door of the room was laboriously pushed open and a tall, gangly Asian guy edged himself into the room. He was holding a guitar case safely in front of himself as he tried to get past the heavy door without dropping anything or getting stuck between the door and the wardrobe.

When he was finally inside, Mean could see that he was wearing a traveller’s backpack – and a wide, friendly smile on his face.

Mean guessed that he was probably Korean. He looked like one of the idols of the Hallyu wave that was breaking in over Europe on the coattails of global megastar Taemin.

“Oh? New roommate?”

The guy spoke the heavily accented German of someone who had only come here as a teenager, leading Mean to guess that he was a foreign student, possibly another recipient of a scholarship by the Stirnimann Foundation.

“Hi, I’m Mean, I’m new,” he said shyly.

“Hyunjun, nice to meet you,” the other replied, “let me guess… Thai? But… you don’t have an accent…”

“I came to Switzerland ten years ago when my mum remarried. But you are right, I’m Thai. And… if that’s your name, you’re Korean?”

The other laughed and nodded.

“Now that that’s out of the way – there’s only one question left that you’ll hear ad nauseam today: what’s your instrument?”

Mean grinned.

He already liked it better here than at his old gymnasium – just the fact that everyone would be playing an instrument was making it so much more agreeable.

“I’m a multi-instrumentalist. Piano is my main, but I also play the guitar and the violin.”

He pointed at the two instrument cases that he had carefully deposited by the window.

His roommate’s face lit up even more when he mentioned the guitar.

“I’m a guitarist, too! Let’s play together soon. What style do you play?”

“Classical.”

Not entirely unexpectedly, this dampened the roommate’s enthusiasm just a little bit. Classical guitar wasn’t the most popular style in this day and age, to be sure.

“Interesting,” at least the Korean knew how to be diplomatic, “I play rock mostly. I’ll try to get a practice room this year and form a band. Maybe you’d still like to try out?”

Mean didn’t answer and only shrugged.

He didn’t know if he had time to play in bands and such, he was mostly concerned with keeping his grades high enough not to lose his scholarship. Nothing would be worse than being forced to return to his stepfamily with his tail between his legs.

“I need to get lucky with the practice room, first. I already signed up on the list, but it’s so difficult to guess how the administration will decide. The criteria for band practice rooms are very eclectic. Ah, I wish I was a local, too. If I was the son of a hotelier here, I might get my parents to free a spot down in their bunkers. But no such luck.”

“I guess you are also a scholarship student?”

The boy nodded, proudly.

“I won the Next Generation Guitarist competition in Japan three years ago, first Korean to do so, too. The winning price was a scholarship by the Stirnimann Foundation – I guess they’re sponsoring you, too, then?”

“Yep,” Mean smiled, “I’ve only won minor competitions here in Switzerland, but it was enough to draw their attention and get encouraged to apply for a scholarship. Do you like it here?”

“Sure do!” Hyunjun shouted happily, “if I can get a band room to practice, it will be perfect. The opportunities here are great, you’ll see, if you like music and work hard, this is the place to be. There are always students who get the chance to play at the Musikfestwochen at Château Royal. If you specialise in classical music, you’ll love that. And there’s a big Winter Open Air Festival for rock and pop acts in January, where they always invite local bands to play warm-up. I’ll try to get a spot this winter! Say, what class will you be in?”

“6B.”

“Hey, me too!”

While Hyunjun temporarily stowed his backpack in his wardrobe and got ready, Mean asked him a bit more about the school, the class, and what he thought of the classmates. The Korean was more than happy to give his opinions, and to help Mean out. He mentioned several times how unsettling he had found it coming here from Korea three years ago, and that he would be happy to take the newbie under his wings.

Mean reckoned that the administration had probably put them in a room together for exactly this purpose.

They were soon ready to go downstairs again. They even managed to snatch one of the last places on the uncomfortable church benches for the opening service. Upon seeing the frown on his face, Hyunjun assured Mean that sitting would still be better than standing on the hard stone floor like the unfortunate students who came even later.

The church was… something.

You had to give it to baroque churches, they always went all in – the altar was colourful and richly decorated, there were various statues of Catholic saints holding their religious insignia – Mean didn’t recognise any of them – and frescos of biblical scenes and imagery on the ceilings and oil paintings mounted on the walls.

Unfortunately, the organ was above the rear rows of benches where they were sitting, and Mean couldn’t see its pipes.

He would hopefully have an opportunity to see it for himself later.

Hyunjun waved at different people he knew, but they all took their seats away from them, if someone had reserved one for them, or stood along the walls.

Mean didn’t get to meet any of them.

And then, he got distracted by a whispered conversation in the row just in front of him. Two black-haired boys where talking to each other excitedly in hushed Thai. It had been some time since Mean had last heard his native language spoken, but he hadn’t forgotten it.

They looked like a weird set of friends, one of them wore a rainbow-coloured tie-dye t-shirt, while the other one was dressed in a linen shirt that you would rather expect in an apprentice at a bank, not a Kollegium student.

“Come on, Mark,” the one in the rainbow tie-dye shirt said, “I really _need_ to go to that concert. [Asian Dub Foundation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOtlvoX7l3Y), I’ve been waiting for ages for them to play close enough to go. Do you know how hard it was for me to get my hands on their album?”

“Then just go. It’s this Saturday night, isn’t it? You are not living at school. They can’t put you under curfew like the boarding school students. Take the Postbus and the train, I bet you can get your parents to find you a room in one of the Château’s partner hotels in town for basically nothing. Tickets shouldn’t be a problem either. If it’s sold out, I’ll make a few calls.”

The boy who wanted to go to the concert looked dejected.

“Mum _‘accidentally’_” – he made air-quotes to sarcastically emphasis the _accidentally_ – “listened in on my phone call with Angela yesterday. It’s not what it sounds like, Angie and I are _just friends_, but she held me this whole long lecture on how we’re still Thai, even if I was born here and that as long as I’m living under their roof, there’s no flirting around for me. And now… I’m grounded.”

He groaned softly, causing some heads to turn towards him. Their conversation resumed, though, as soon as people were looking away again.

“Title, dude, you’re practically an adult already. Just wait until January, when they drop the legal age to 18, and you’d be a grown-up as we speak. Why do you let them control you like that?”

The guy evidently named Title sighed.

“They still pay the bills.”

The other one, Mark, smirked.

“Well, if you really want to go… but you didn’t hear it from me, got it? I heard… through the grapevine… that Gun and Plan are having a gig at the Factory in Lucerne on Saturday. I don’t know their setup this time, if they go together or just one of them, but with the equipment they need, they’ll have to drive there somehow. Maybe you can sneak out when your parents are busy, and hitch a ride with them. They’ll get you back before breakfast.”

Title shuddered.

The reaction surprised Mean. The entire story sounded highly suspicious.

“If there’s no other way…”

“I tell you there isn’t…”

Title winced softly.

“Maybe try Gun first. Plan is trouble.”

“Speaking of the devil…”

Mark looked up out of the corner of his eyes and nodded in the direction of the boy who had just entered the church, a few seconds before the service was about to start. He had jet-black hair, cut in an unfashionable bowl cut, and looked delicate among the Europeans that were standing in his corner. His small frame was only highlighted by the fact that he wore bootcut jeans with a slim fit on the thighs and a roughly form-fitting button-up shirt, while the majority of the boys in the room preferred wide hip-hop style baggy pants that sat low on the hip, along with branded, oversized XXL t-shirts.

The boy’s face didn’t match his delicate look, however. He wore an annoyed scowl on his sleeve – and even the tallest, most imposing boys moved out of his way when he approached.

One shivering boy near the front of the church got up from the bench automatically and offered him his seat – a proposition that was promptly declined.

“Ah, I see you’ve notice Plan,” Hyunjun said softly next to him, “stay away. He’s trouble.”

In an even softer voice, making sure they couldn’t hear, Mean told him about the conversation in Thai he had just overheard, about the boy Title who wanted to attend a concert, and Plan and someone called Gun having a gig at another venue?

“Yeah, I’m telling you, if half the stories people share about Plan are true, he’s _really_ bad news. Officially, he hasn’t been allowed to go out at all without supervision by a teacher, but it’s an open secret among students that he’s constantly out and about. But he _never_ gets caught.”

Mean took another look at the guy everyone seemed afraid of. Plan almost seemed to drown in the group of tall guys that surrounded him now.

How could these stories even be possible?

“Don’t get fooled by his looks. They say he’s a master of disguise, and this is just his harmless schoolboy look. My friend Minseok suspected him of being connected to the North Korean ruling dynasty for an entire year when he arrived… don’t talk to him about that, though, it’s a touchy subject.”

“Why? Isn’t Plan Thai, why would he think he was North Korean?”

Hyunjun nodded and winced.

“It’s… a long story. Minseok… found the one he was looking for eventually. But that doesn’t make Plan harmless. Don’t go near him, is all I’m saying.”

* * *

Mean had barely sat down with his tray, mindlessly trailing behind Hyunjun to a table in the corner, when the entire refectory was suddenly getting filled with loud, excited whispers. When he followed everyone’s gazes towards the rear entrance, he could see the cause for the commotion: an ethereally beautiful young Asian man was casually walking in, down the aisle towards the teacher’s table, throwing smiles at people he recognised – like a celebrity.

You could have expected this kind of reaction to a good-looking young guy at a girls’ school, but Mean was surprised to see the admiration and the idolisation in many of his schoolmates’ faces as well.

He automatically turned to Hyunjun – who had been joined by two other tall, handsome Koreans – were they all stunning like that? Both of them had their hair dyed in such a light tone it looked almost colourless – one with a slightly green shimmer, the other platinum blond and slightly curly.

All three Koreans were grinning.

“That’s Mr Chonlathorn Kongyingyong, but everyone around here calls him _Captain_.”

Mean took a good look at Captain. It was hard to believe that this young man was already a teacher, he looked barely older than some of the students – and even Mean himself.

“What’s his deal? Why is everyone so excited?”

The slightly taller, curly-haired one of Hyunjun’s friends grinned broadly.

“He’s a school legend. He’s a skate boarder and snow boarder, he might even try to qualify for the Olympics in three years! But most importantly, he’s a break-dancer. He appeared in several Eurodance videos, don’t listen to the hip hoppers who call him a sell-out, he has real experience in the industry. He’s back as a teacher for now, don’t know why... You don’t understand… he had a hip hop crew when he graduated, we were just tiny little freshmen, and they were like superstars in the Matura class. Half the girls in the village had an undying crush on him – and all the boys at school wanted to learn his tricks,” he giggled slightly, “and now, _we_ can!”

Mean threw another look at Captain and tilted his head. He could certainly see why the guys who were into popular music would idolise someone like him – but for Mean’s taste, he looked a bit too… vain?

When the commotion had died down a bit – or more accurately, when the Koreans finally managed to tear their eyes away from Captain – the platinum blond one who had talked earlier looked at Hyunjun again:

“Who is our new friend, anyway, Hyunjun?”

“This is Mean,” Hyunjun jovially laid his arm over his shoulders to push him towards his friend slightly, “he is my new roommate, Thai, but came to Switzerland ten years ago when his mum remarried, he is on a scholarship like me, and he plays the piano, the guitar, and the violin. Classical style. Did I remember correctly?”

Mean looked down shyly and nodded. He wasn’t used to people listening to what he said.

“Hi Mean, I’m Minseok, I play the drums – and this,” the platinum blond nodded towards the other, “is Junyoung, though he goes by the name Jun[*], he’s a bassist.”

[* Pronounced in German as _Yun_.]

At the mention of the name Minseok, Mean looked up. The one who thought the dangerous Plan-guy everyone was warning him about was North Korean, that was him?

He didn’t look like someone who was having delusions. He looked nice and friendly?

And as if he could be summoned by merely thinking about him, said dangerous Plan-guy suddenly appeared behind them, carelessly carrying a tray of food and putting it down in front of an empty seat at the table right next to Mean.

Plan looked at Minseok like he had an odour – and his expression only somewhat relaxed when he looked at the rest of them, until his gaze reached Mean and he paused.

“Did you gather another piece of dust in your little ball of dirt, Minseok? Or… hm, maybe this one is a suspect, too. What country could he be a spy of, what do you think? China?” Plan tilted his head, “one of these new -stan countries from the former USSR, maybe?”

It felt like the temperature had dropped several degrees, as Plan sat down at the table as if he didn’t have a care in the world, while Minseok glared at him like his eyes could shoot fire.

“What are you doing here, Plan? We were here first, fuck off.”

“Ah, language, _Minseok_, you don’t want to write lines on your first day back, do you? I personally would love it if you did, while I get to choose the drum-kit for this year before you. Last time I checked, this was a free country, and this,” he pointed at the table in front of him, “was a free spot at this table. If you can’t sit next to me, just move yourself.”

The bright, sparkling smile on Plan’s face would have looked adorably cute, if Mean hadn’t known the context of it.

He tried to discreetly move away from him a bit – which… was the wrong move.

“It’s okay, I don’t bite, little teddy bear. Just stay here. I guess you’re Korean, too, like these idiots?”

The lightly green-haired boy, Jun, smiled threateningly back at Plan and sat down opposite of him.

“What is it, Plannie baby? Are you bored already? The school year hasn’t even started, yet.”

“Who are you calling baby? Last I checked, you were the youngest at this table – except maybe for little teddy bear here, don’t know his age. Aren’t you Korean? Aren’t you supposed to be all _yes, Hyung_ and bow and shit in front of your elders?”

While Hyunjun tried in vain to calm his friends down, and Mean watched the entire scene moderately shell-shocked, Jun shook his head and grinned devilishly.

“I’m not Korean, Plan, don’t you remember? I’m _Swiss_. We are independent and free, and like William Tell, I bow to no one, particularly not to you.”

Plan’s smile in return wasn’t any less mischievous.

“Sure, that’s why your adoptive parents are sending you to this shithole of a school, isn’t it? So you can learn aaaall about William Tell and being Swiss, and not, you know… Korean, like your friends.”

Jun wanted to retort something, but he never could, because Plan’s eyes suddenly shot up, when he spotted a slightly space-out, blue-haired guy in the crowed and waved him over. That boy hurried to the table and dropped into the chair next to Plan immediately.

From that moment on, Plan didn’t pay the Koreans any more attention – and to Mean’s delight, he started whispering with the other guy in Thai. The blue-haired boy was Gun, who had been mentioned by Mark in the church. The other guy who could help Title get to Lucerne.

Mean needed to contain his amusement at Plan’s stupid mistake. He had never bothered to find out Mean’s actual nationality, and he was very obviously not considering that he might be Thai and understand him.

Contrary to what he expected, they weren’t talking about his new Korean friends and him. Rather, they were apparently talking through their evening plans for the week. From context, Mean could deduce that Gun was Plan’s roommate – and that they were working together as a DJ duo. Which explained the gig in Lucerne they would be having on the weekend.

Mean could also confirm the rumour that Hyunjun had already told him about – that Plan definitely didn’t stay obediently in his room after curfew every night.

If Mean were, well… _mean_, he could tattle on these two now, before they found out he understood Thai.

Listening to their conversation was quite instructive, and he had discreetly indicated to the Koreans that they shouldn’t talk to him for a while. During the course of the meal, Mean found out that Plan and Gun had elaborate systems in place in their room to simulate someone moving and talking inside. They were certainly resourceful.

He also found out that they had several different methods of sneaking out – and apparently quite a few hide-outs scattered around the village.

At least, Mean could now understand why Minseok would have suspected Plan to be a spy or something. He certainly could be.

By now, Mean had figured why Plan had sat down next to the Koreans and riled them up – he wanted to have a quiet corner away from everyone to talk his plans through with Gun, since they evidently didn’t have time for that in the privacy of their room. They had chosen a table in the corner, next to the Koreans, who wouldn’t understand Thai. And those who understood Thai… they would be too far away to understand their hushed words even if they were trying to listen.

And then… Mean, who was a Thai native speaker, was sitting right next to them and heard it _all_.

The problem was – for now, he had no use for this information, and it would only be a matter of time before Plan and Gun noticed their rookie mistake.

Staying away from Plan might be more difficult for Mean than he had bargained for. And worse… the conditions of his scholarship made it so he _must not_ get into any kind of trouble.

_Shit._

The amusement that he had felt about being able to understand their conversation faded into a neutral, slightly worried poker face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said: This story will remain on ice, until I have finished High Energy Collision.
> 
> And, the title track to this chapter is obviously [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRFfPZQeJuo).


	4. A Danger Illustrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is a line in [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmin5WkOuPw) by The Prodigy.

**End of August 1995, That Saturday**

Mean looked around himself suspiciously, when he reached the bench at the edge of the skate park, where Gun had told him to wait for Plan.

He couldn’t believe he was actually doing this, sneaking out on his first weekend here, from a school he had worked so hard getting into.

But in the end, it was the best option. He didn’t want to push his luck hoping Plan was bluffing. Plus, alienating the most dangerous boy at school didn’t sound wise in general.

On top of that, Mean didn’t trust the school administration to actually protect him against Plan, if he told them about his plans.

He had managed to get some information out of the Koreans eventually, mostly Hyunjun. It was enough to know that the core of what Plan had said was true: he had indeed nearly caused an international incident between Thailand, both Koreas, and Switzerland, though the specifics were kind of hazy. After that, his family had sent him off to Engelstalden to protect his father’s diplomatic career, and keep him out of reach of any sensitive information.

Knowing this, Mean was realist enough to understand that the school administration had no interest in any of Plan’s rumoured misdeeds leaving an official record. As long as he didn’t make too much noise or worse, caused it to blow up in their faces, they were better off looking away. Admitting that he did these things, would mean admitting they had failed their task... and ultimately, they would be losing the money they were no doubt receiving to keep Plan in check.

Given the length Plan clearly went to, to conceal his illicit activities, the school probably had some hold over him and he wasn’t completely unhinged, but it was no surprise that they weren’t trying too hard to investigate the rumours, either.

In the end, Mean had decided not to bother using up one of his free weekends for something like this.

Instead, he had lied to Hyunjun about having a girlfriend at his stepfamily’s village and he had hinted that she would secretly come to Engelstalden for the weekend. The weather was nice enough for them to find a secluded spot to camp out, somewhere deeper inside the valley, he had reasoned. Maybe by the little lake that braver souls than Mean jumped in to bathe, now, at the end of a hot summer.

Hyunjun had very enthusiastically promised him his support, telling him several times how much he envied him for having a girlfriend… unwittingly pushing Mean into an awkward situation.

Worse, Hyunjun was asking him for a picture of her.

When Mean had told him he sadly didn’t have any, because they had been hiding it from their families, Hyunjun had insisted that he should absolutely take the opportunity of her visit to take strips of black and white passport pictures together. There was a cheap 1 Francs photo booth, over at the lower station of the cable car. Apparently, all the local teenagers used it to capture their friendships.

Well, that was just the thing, wasn’t it?

One lie always spawned another, and covering it up would become more difficult.

Now, Mean needed to come up with a plan to break up with his imaginary girlfriend, before it became suspicious that he had still no picture of her.

Or, maybe he could get a picture of a random girl in Lucerne, while he waited for Plan’s concert to end.

Mean was nervously fidgeting while he waited on the bench. Plan should be here in a few minutes, if he was as punctual as people here were in general.

To distract himself, he watched the skaters in front of him.

The skate park was busy at this time in mid-afternoon. Mostly boys and a few girls in baggy shorts and oversized t-shirts were practicing tricks on skateboards and inline skates – the better equipped with helmets and kneepads, but most of them had neither.

After watching them for a while, Mean couldn’t help being impressed by the more advanced skaters and their neat tricks on the half-pipe and the street style course. They were certainly more skilled here than the skater kids back in his stepfamily’s village.

A weird mixture of punk-rock and hip hop was blaring from big ghetto blasters at the edges of different groups. The noise of their music blurring together, made Mean long for the calm and soothing harmonies of a good chamber music quartet, Mozart maybe, or Vivaldi.

He nearly screamed, when his eyes were suddenly covered from behind.

_What?_

He hadn’t noticed anyone approaching.

“Waiting for your girlfriend, Teddy Bear?”

Mean held his breath, trying to contain his anger. He hadn’t known he could hate a nickname, and a _voice_ this much.

He removed the hands and turned around to greet…

“Plan?!”

The guy standing behind the bench looked _nothing_ like the small, cute schoolboy image Plan cultivated at the Kollegium – and for a moment, Mean contemplated the option that this was… _someone else_, like a twin brother or something…

Instead of black and unfashionable, the boy’s hair was bright pink and stylish. And… now that Mean had been staring at him for too long, he noticed that his face was contoured and highlighted with subtle make-up, too, just enough to make his facial structure look more edgy and grown up.

It was impressive, Mean had to give him that – that he could appear to look so different with only a wig, a bit of make-up, and a different scowl on his face.

Plan currently wasn’t wearing a shirt, either. Other than the black backpack on his back, he only wore a pair of the same type of baggy skater shorts and vans as the boys practicing on the half-pipe.

He casually lifted up a longboard, that he must have leaned against the bench before surprising Mean.

“Come on, _loverboy_, time to go,” Plan said cheerfully, “you don’t want someone to see you leaving with me, do you? They’ll all ask you who the pink-haired girl was. Oh, wait. I forgot. You’re meeting your _girlfriend_, aren’t you? I guess, that’ll be her, then. Pretty, am I not?”

“Pretty brave to go shirtless, for a girl.”

Instead of getting flustered by the comment, as Mean had hoped, a tiny bit, Plan just smiled brightly at him.

“You’re such an adorable prude, Teddy Bear. Come on – maybe I was wrong and I’m not the girlfriend after all. We have to pick up Title and Mark next. We shouldn’t make your girlfriend wait… Hm, which one of the two might it be? Personally, I’d take Title, he’s got some serious chill. But maybe you like your girlfriends in more of the yuppie style?”

Mean exhaled.

This was going to be a long night.

While Mean stood up from the bench, Plan took off the backpack and handed it to him.

“We’re going down there,” he pointed to a spot in the distance, “to the visitor’s parking lot at Lower Engelstalden. I’ll skate ahead – so hurry up, will you? When you reach the public toilet by the fountain at the village square over there, change into the clothes in the bag.”

Before Plan could skate away, Mean opened the backpack to peek inside.

“A blue wig?”

Plan shrugged.

“If you complain, I can get you a skirt. Maybe _you_ are the girlfriend?”

Mean didn’t want to ask how Plan had found out about the girlfriend story, and why he found it so funny to tease him with it.

_One weekend._

He needed to remind himself that it was_ just_ one weekend. He didn’t want to alienate Plan more than necessary. Plan should forget about him as soon as possible, like he had promised in the broom closet.

“Why blue, though?”

Before answering, Plan looked around himself anxiously.

“I’ll explain it to you once we’re in the car. See you!”

With a sigh, Mean watched him skate away, and walked off in the direction of Lower Engelstalden, too. He glanced back towards the skate park before he turned around the corner, hoping none of the kids playing there had noticed this strange encounter.

He realised now that it would only cause him trouble if they had. Nobody would recognise the pink-haired boy as Plan. And, if Mean was really unlucky, they already knew who _he_ was, and rumours about his girlfriend being a boy would spread like wildfire.

_That… Boy!_

Mean clenched his teeth.

What had he ever done to deserve this?

It was hard enough finding a footing at this school as a newcomer in the second to last year, while everyone else had already been in the same class for five years. It was hard enough trying not to lose his scholarship… did he really need to have weird rumours about him on top of that?

He crossed his fingers that this wouldn’t happen. People around here didn’t know who he was, yet, and his face hopefully wasn’t standing out enough for people to remember him among all the other Asian students at the Kollegium.

In any case, these thoughts motivated him to hurry to the public toilet Plan had pointed out, and change into the clothes in the bag as soon as possible.

When he left it again shortly afterwards, he felt like he was dressed up for carnival.

Along with the blue wig there were a bright green shirt and baggy shorts. Well… at least the shorts were okay-ish.

At the parking lot he had sent him to – luckily, the village wasn’t big enough to get lost on the way – Mean found Plan standing next to a red Subaru hatchback. It was the kind of car farmers and alpine herdsmen liked to drive, because it came with the option of four-wheel drive, and a big trunk to transport milk churns and half your household stuff if you packed tightly enough.

All four doors of the car were open, and as soon as Mean got closer, he understood why.

The car must have been parked here for a while, judging by the leaves that had fallen onto the roof and the engine cover. Despite being parked in the shade of large trees, it had probably heated up over the summer.

“Ah, perfect!” Plan exclaimed, when he finally spotted him.

Mean hadn’t made any efforts trying to catch his attention. He wasn’t particularly keen on spending more time in Plan’s company than strictly necessary.

“Perfect?”

“Yeah… We just need to apply a bit of make-up, and they’ll believe you’re him.”

_Him?_

Who…?

The question must have been written in his face so obviously that Plan answered without Mean actually asking it.

“Gun. We’re a duo, _Can of Techno_. I’m Can, he’s Techno. They booked both of us tonight. But we can’t both sneak out on Saturdays. So… congratulations, you’ve just become a House DJ.”

_Seriously?_

What kind of sick game was Plan playing? Was this some kind of initiation ritual he had to go through to become part of the school or something?

“Hasn’t our deal been that I’ll help you carry boxes and stuff… not… dress up as your DJ partner? Won’t your fans see that I’m not him?”

Plan shook his head.

“It was a necessary precaution. Sorry, Teddy Bear. I couldn’t tell you earlier. But don’t fret. We’ve done this countless times. I usually take Mark, he’s done it several times in the past – but of course the idiot has to insist on going to that concert with Title, and since you’re already here…”

“But… I look _nothing_ like Gun?”

Plan laughed.

“Teddy Bear! You’re so funny! You’re Asian, no, you’re even Thai, like him… and you wear a blue wig. Do you think these Europeans will be able to tell you apart, when he’s not there?”

“Isn’t that a little racist?”

The laughter got louder.

“Of course. But why not take advantage of their inability to tell us apart? It will be a dimly lit club full of drunk and tripping party folks, they won’t care. Sometimes, when we’re feeling bored, Gun and I change outfits. Nobody has ever noticed the difference. I’m the pink-haired one, he’s the blue-haired one. So, today, _you_… are him. I hope you know how to operate turntables?”

Mean nodded.

At this point, he just… accepted all the bullshit.

_One weekend._

It was just one weekend.

“Hop in,” Plan nodded in the direction of the shotgun seat, “since you’re here first, you can sit next to me. You’ll thank me later. In this heat, being close to the vents in front is a real advantage.”

While Mean got into the car, he wondered whether he really wanted to ask whose car this was. Or if he’d rather… _not_ know.

“Are you even old enough to have a licence?”

With a smirk, Plan motioned him to open the glove box.

Mean did, while Plan was starting the engine.

There was a driver’s licence in there alright, right next to the vehicle registration.

“Why does it say Kim Minseok? Did you fabricate it?”

Plan shrugged.

“Are you for real? Do you know how much trouble you could be in if you got pulled over and they find out it’s fake… and why Minseok? Seriously, what’s the deal with the two of you?”

Without looking at him, Plan nodded.

“Yes, I’m for real. I won’t be in trouble, don’t you worry in your pretty little head. Obviously, it has to be Minseok. The Koreans would make sure this embarrassment is dealt with discreetly, if what you’re scared of actually happened. But, I see you still haven’t asked him…”

Plan drove off the parking lot, back towards Upper Engelstalden – probably to collect the two others.

“Why did you call him a spy?”

It was true, what Plan suspected: Mean didn’t have the guts to ask Hyunjun or any of his other Korean friends about the story between Plan and Minseok. It had been hard enough checking Plan’s background with them without raising suspicion.

“I’m telling you this at your own peril,” Plan said matter-of-factly. “They’ll all deny it, of course. Officially, Minseok’s parents are mere office clerks at the South Korean embassy, but I _know_ they are ANSP. They are monitoring North Korean activities. There are rumours that the sons of Kim Jong-Il are studying somewhere in Switzerland. Our paths have crossed in the past, Minseok I mean. It was embarrassing... for him. But even if you believed that his family really are just pencil pushers in a nice office in Berne… they’d still keep this quiet, before the police even had a chance to figure out I’m not him. It’s the best way not to hurt anyone who shouldn’t get hurt.”

“You’re crazy.”

Plan shrugged.

“No risk, no fun.”

While they were waiting at a crossroads in silence – Mean was somewhat surprised that Plan hadn’t turned on the radio, yet, or put in a cassette into the cassette desk – he tried to make sense of all of this.

“Whose car is this?” he asked, when he had finally remembered what he had been wondering about before. It was less loaded than asking about Korean spies and politics.

“Mine.”

“Did you steal it?”

Plan chuckled.

“No, what the hell do you think I am? I’m not a criminal.”

Sure, he wasn’t… other than driving a car with a fake driver’s licence that might create a diplomatic incident between Thailand and South Korea, if it was ever discovered.

And… _everything else_.

“I bought it off an alpine herdsman at a cattle exhibition last spring.”

Mean… didn’t want to ask where the hell a high school student like Plan would get the funds to buy a car from – and register it under the name of his Korean rival. He also didn’t want to think about the implications this had on his friendship with the Koreans, if he ended up getting entangled in Plan’s crazy schemes.

They had made allusions about Minseok’s mistake concerning Plan before – but up until now, it had sounded more like a joke about a Korean diplomat son’s too vivid imagination, not like he really was… associated with the Korean intelligence agency.

If there hadn’t been so much evidence… Mean would have thought Plan was bullshitting him. But… well, this shit was weird, and Mean couldn’t wait to be free of it again.

* * *

“Where are we going?”

After they had successfully picked up Title and Mark on the parking lot of the lower station of the cable car, Mean had expected Plan to drive out of the valley towards Lucerne.

Instead, he was returning to Lower Engelstalden once more, and neither Title nor Mark seemed to be surprised by that.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

The tone in Plan’s voice was so ambiguous that Mean couldn’t tell if he had genuinely forgotten, or if this was another instance of slowly feeding him more things he wouldn’t have accepted otherwise.

“Plan makes us carry boxes as a payment for the ride,” Mark said. “We’re going to the hideout to get his equipment.”

When Mean glanced at the rear mirror, he saw that Mark hadn’t looked up from the black notebook in his lap, where he was busily writing down phone numbers and messages from his pager.

“I thought he coerced only me into carrying the boxes?”

“Did he?” Mark glanced at him quickly through the rear mirror, before returning to his task. “All the better. I need to call these people back as soon as possible, anyway. Do you still have that recording for the phone booths, Plan?”

Mean wanted to protest that this hadn’t been what he meant, but the conversation had only gotten more enigmatic.

“They’ve replaced it a month ago. It’s working on tax cards, now,” Plan said.

What were they even talking about?

“… and I’m sure you have a way to bypass that, too?”

Mark finally raised his head properly, and looked at Plan through the mirror with big, pleading eyes.

“I’m not running a charity, you know,” Plan answered, while he was slowly driving the car up a slope along rows of holiday apartment buildings and chalets.

“I’ll give you 10% of the earnings of my next event.”

“40%.”

“20!”

“Forget it.”

“Okay, 25, and you’re ripping me off.”

Their haggling went back and forth so fast, that Mean could barely keep up.

“Hardly,” Plan said. “I’m lucky if your event makes money at all.”

Mark kicked Plan’s seat.

Mean gasped.

How could he do that to the driver? Did he want to die in a car crash?

Plan only laughed, though, and took the next turn as if it was nothing.

“Just because I made a few rookie mistakes at my first event, doesn’t mean I haven’t learned anything from it,” Mark replied, audibly annoyed. “Just so you know, I’ve made good money from all of my other events. If you think so little of me, I should only give you 10% after all.”

“Suit yourself,” Plan said with a shrug. “If you make so much money, can’t you afford to buy tax cards, anyway?”

Mark groaned.

“Aww, come on. I don’t have time to pass by the post office to buy these things.”

While Mark continued to complain about the short opening hours of the post office, and how impractical it was that you couldn’t just use normal coins in a phone booth anymore, Plan steered the car towards the underground parking lot of one of the holiday apartment buildings.

By now, Mean wasn’t surprised about anything, anymore, like the fact that Plan had the key to open it.

Plan parked the car right next to the to the staircase to the apartments, and before he got out of the car, he reached into his back pocket, took out a stack of cards, and held one up over his head.

“25%.”

Mark scowled, but quickly snatched it and put it in his own pocket.

“Go make your phone calls, then. Don’t forget our deal.”

Without another word, Mark exited the car and ran off towards the garage door they had just entered through.

“Alright, you two, help me with the boxes,” he said. “Hey, hey! Title!”

Mean turned his head to look at the guy in the seat behind him, who had his eyes closed and was nodding absent-mindedly to the mellow beat of whatever music he was listening to on his Walkman.

“You wake him up,” Plan grumbled towards him. “Or not, if you think you can carry everything on your own. I don’t care.”

While Plan walked around the car to open the trunk, Mean sighed and climbed out, too.

He contemplated not shaking Title out of his daydream.

Both Mark and Title were in the same class as Mean, and when they had heard that he was Thai during class introduction, they had offered him to join their clique.

They seemed nice enough, but Mean also felt weirdly intimidated.

Title was the second son of the owners of the Château Royal, and as far as the Kollegium was concerned, he was practically royalty. Not that Title ever did anything just to please people or secure his power. Plan hadn’t been wrong earlier: Title was chill, friendly, and good-natured. He did what he liked, because he liked it, and he was impossibly cool doing it.

According to Hyunjun, Title could set a fashion trend among part of the youths of Engelstalden just by wearing a new style to school, or on stage as the leader of the Ska band Monkeyheads.

Mean wasn’t worried that Title would bully him for trying to be friendly with him or anything – it was more like he was not even remotely cool enough to hang out with someone like him.

It was bad enough that he had gotten into Plan’s crosshair.

Still… Mean wasn’t keen on carrying whatever boxes Plan needed him to all alone, so, he quickly opened the door next to Title’s seat and carefully tabbed his upper arm until he opened his eyes and looked at him.

Mean pointed at his own ears to signal to him that he should take off his headphones.

“Plan wants us to help carry his boxes,” he explained.

Title smiled, nodded, and wordlessly walked around the car to Plan, who was still busy preparing the trunk.

Mean couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Title soon came back, shaking a keychain in his hand and nodding towards the door.

“You know where to go?”

“Yeah,” Title said, still smiling. “I forgot that you are new. It’s the blue hair, dude, it confuses me. Just follow me.”

They entered the building, and Mean soon realised that Title was leading him straight ahead into the bunker. When he had first come to Switzerland, he had been freaked out that nearly every building had one, his stepfamily’s house, his schools, and apparently even holiday apartment complexes like this one.

Of course, holiday makers should find shelter in case of a nuclear attack, too. And having space in fallout shelters for every single inhabitant was very important to this country.

After walking down a short corridor, Title unlocked an unmarked door, and switched the light on inside.

Every bit of available space was used up to store boxes of vinyl records, organised on shelves along the walls. In front of them on the floor were neatly labelled cases with the DJ equipment – turntables, switchboards, amplifiers, and a lot of cables.

“Wow,” Mean’s mouth dropped open. “That’s… wow. How did he get all this? Why is it in this random building?”

Title jovially put his arm over Mean’s shoulder, making him flinch.

“I have no idea,” he said cheerfully. “You’d have to ask Plan, if you really wanna know. From experience, let me tell you, though, dude… it’s better not to.”

Yeah, Mean could see that. He was curious, true, but the more he got to see of Plan, the more he became convinced that the rumours were all true.

“Do you do this often?” he asked, as Title started to point out the equipment cases they needed to take with them first.

“Nah,” Title answered, shaking his head. “I’ve only hitched a ride a few times. But Mark is standing in for Gun fairly regularly. They have some sort of deal, I believe. I dunno. It’s better not to dig.”

“Gossiping about me?”

Mean winced. Plan had turned up seemingly out of nowhere behind them again.

Seriously was he a ghost or a ninja or something? How could he keep sneaking up on him?

Undeterred, Plan jumped between Title and him with outstretched arms, nearly tumbling them over.

“Not really?” Title answered. “You can’t be mad at the newbie for asking a few questions. It’s all good.”

“Whatever you say,” Plan chuckled. “Now, hurry. If you hadn’t chattered so much, we could already have packed everything.”

While Mean lowered his head guiltily, even though they hadn’t really dallied that much, Title shrugged and lifted up one of the equipment cases.

By the time Mean had taken the other one, he saw that Plan was stacking boxes of vinyl records onto his longboard.

It was obvious that this was far from the first time he was doing this.


	5. Lose Myself Inside Your Schemes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally starting this story properly, after High Energy Collision is officially completed! 
> 
> The title is a line from [this song by Leftfield](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZj9bi7YNmI). This song was on the soundtrack for the 1995 movie "Hackers" with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Lee Miller, which is one of the not so thinly veiled inspirations for the Plan character in this story.

**End of August 1995, three days later**

Fitting in in a new environment was never easy, Mean knew that.

Luckily for him, this wasn’t the first time he had been uprooted and forced to start from scratch at a new place. There were a few things that helped him get comfortable easily: his favourite cushion that had accompanied him all the way from Thailand, a secret stack of comfort foods… and finally, after three days, he had found what truly comforted him, always:

A piano to practice on in his own time.

There were rows of small individual practice booths in labyrinthine corridors in the subbasement running below the entire school complex. At first glance, they almost looked like prison cells:

One door next to the other, each with a round window on head level, that allowed you to see if it was occupied. Each of the booths only contained either a piano or a set of drums, plus two or three chairs. No decorations, no distractions, not even the otherwise omnipresent crucifixes.

The only natural light shining into some of these booths in the outer corridors, came through small windows at the top of the walls, that were secured with iron bars on the outside – just reinforcing the prison impression.

Most of these booths were locked, and could only be accessed by teachers, or through a tedious reservation process at the school’s reception desk, days in advance. Mean had thought he would never get to practice outside of official practice periods, until a fellow pianist classmate had told him today, that there was one booth in the farthest corner of each of the underground corridors, that was never locked and could be used by anyone, provided it was unoccupied.

Mean exhaled with relief when the first one he checked after lunch was empty. He took off his backpack, and quickly placed the sheet music for his current project on the piano:

Modest Mussorgsky’s _Pictures at an Exhibition_.

With his last piano teacher at his previous school, he had only managed to fully study the different variations of the _Promenade_ so far. He was excited to get properly started with the first pictures soon, when the individual lessons started next week.

Technically, he could play the entire concert at sight, and for ignorant people like his stepfather, it would probably even sound right enough, but he wouldn’t dare play it in front of a proper audience any time soon.

Ah, but of course… before he could start practicing for real, he needed to warm himself up by playing scales.

He didn’t mind.

He smiled as soon as he hit the first notes, and the warm sound of the unfamiliar piano filled the booth.

This was good.

This felt like home.

* * *

Mean happily hummed the melody of the _Promenade_ from _Pictures of an Exhibition_ on his way back to his room. He had completely forgotten time, while he had played the piano in the little underground practice booth on his own.

If nobody competed with him for it, Mean could see himself claiming that booth for himself eventually. He had dreamt of an opportunity to practice consistently since he had first discovered his love for classical music.

Luckily, he hadn’t missed any classes today. He had only used the time that would be dedicated to individual instrumental lessons in the future.

Most of his classmates had taken the opportunity of the many free periods in the first week without individual lessons to enjoy the late Summer sun outside.

Mean had originally promised his roommate Hyunjun and his clique of Koreans, that he would join them with his guitar on the shores of the little mountain lake at the end of the valley later, too. But it was nearly time for dinner already, and he sadly would have to find another opportunity to jam with them.

“Hey, Teddy Bear!”

Mean froze.

He recognised the voice behind him, shouting after him in Thai.

_Plan._

The guy with the troublemaking reputation. The guy who had accidentally revealed his weekend plans to him, because he had mistaken Mean for a Korean.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

Mean flinched himself out of his stupor, held his head down, and tried to hurry away before Plan could catch up to him.

It was futile.

A quick hand wrapped around his wrist, and before Mean could fight back, he was forcefully pulled around to face a very angry boy, whose deceivingly innocent look didn’t match the deadly glare in his eyes at all.

Instead of talking to him, Plan pulled Mean along the corridor and into a nearby broom closet.

Mean was too perplexed to even struggle against him – and now he was in the dark and narrow closet with reputedly the most dangerous guy at this school.

He tried to lift his hand up to his chest to calm his heaving breath and loudly beating heart. The movement was immediately blocked by Plan, who pushed him backwards into a set of brooms, until the broomsticks were pressing uncomfortably into Mean’s backside.

He would have gasped, if he hadn’t been so scared of Plan’s retaliation.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

Mean’s brain was drawing a blank beyond that useless mantra, while Plan did not seem to be in a hurry at all. He calmly lit a flashlight, illuminating his inscrutable face dramatically from below, like something out of a horror movie.

“I know you are Thai, now, Teddy Bear,” Plan said, still speaking Thai, daring Mean to pretend not to understand with his gaze, “so, why are you hanging around with Minseok and those _Koreans_?”

Really?

“I didn’t know this was a nationalist apartheid regime.”

Mean could almost have cried with relief that he had found his voice again, even if it felt like someone else was talking through him right now. Someone who wasn’t scared in the least.

It suddenly felt a lot like one of his countless arguments with his stepdad, where the only effective defence had been this: hiding behind a mask of cool detachment, rather than provoking him more by fuelling his choleric anger.

“Haha, very funny,” Plan rolled his eyes, not even a hint of laughter on his face, “you know what I mean.”

Mean smirked.

“No, enlighten me.”

This was so uncannily like his stepdad, that if Plan hadn’t been speaking Thai, Mean might have been fooled into thinking he was back in his stepfather’s living room, defiantly standing his ground against a man who didn’t want him.

“You listened to my conversation with Gun on the first day,” Plan said. “Which is a little unfortunate, because that conversation was meant to be _private_, and now you’re a liability to me… and I don’t like that. Liabilities.”

Mean raised his eyebrows.

“Well, what do you offer, then?”

He shouldn’t forget that he knew what Plan was up to this Saturday, and that this had ostensibly spooked him enough to corner him in here. That had to count for something.

“Oh?” for the first time since the start of their conversation, Plan smiled. It didn’t make him look friendly, though. It only highlighted the threat. “Did you think this was a negotiation? Cute. I’m sorry. I don’t negotiate. I’m just being nice, you know, because you are new. Give you a chance to prove your worth to me.”

This was… what?

Mean frowned.

How could he?

“So, let me get this straight,” he said. “I know sensitive information about you… and you are… _threatening_ me? Is that wise?”

Plan shook his head, still smiling to himself so scarily that Mean would take a step back, if he wasn’t already pressed against the wall, with the brooms uncomfortably caught in between.

“Ah, my sweet summer child, little Teddy Bear… what do you think you can do with that sensitive information, hm? Run to the headmaster and tattle tale on me? It would be your word against mine, sweetie. Reporting a supposed crime that hasn’t happened, yet? Who would believe you? Ah, you see… the advantage of being a prisoner here, is that they won’t throw me out, ever.”

The fact that Plan hadn’t raised his voice at all, only increased the threat. He sounded so eerily calm that it gave Mean goose bumps.

“_You_, on the other hand…” Plan flicked his fingers in front of Mean’s face, as if he needed to get his attention. “I’ve looked up your file. That’s a nice scholarship you have there. It would be sad if it… _poof_, disappeared, don’t you think?”

Mean felt the heat leave his cheeks, while he desperately tried to keep his frozen smile up.

No.

No, no… not the scholarship.

This would be… Mean couldn’t even imagine how catastrophic it would be, to have to go back to his stepfamily, with his tail between his legs, like a loser.

He didn’t want that.

Ever.

He would do anything, absolutely _anything_, to keep his scholarship.

But… he couldn’t reveal to someone as dangerous as Plan, just how important the scholarship was to him, could he?

What did he mean by being a prisoner here, anyway?

Plan had to be bluffing.

He couldn’t be this powerful.

Mean couldn’t imagine that a guy like Plan wouldn’t get himself into a world of trouble, if he got caught sneaking out on Saturday, especially given his shady reputation.

“You can’t do that!”

Plan smiled wickedly.

“Oh, but I _can_,” he said. “What do you know, Teddy Bear? What did they tell you about me? Did your buddy Minseok tell you he thought I was a spy, like him?”

A spy _like him_?

What was he even talking about? Some things at this school were weird, there was no denying that. He couldn’t be talking about literal spies, could he? What business would they have at a place like this?

Mean shook his head and sealed his lips.

“Come on, little Puppy Bear, they must have told you something. They always do. Haven’t they told you to stay away from me? That I’m _dangerous_?”

The small boy was practically breathing down his neck. He was so close that every word made Mean shiver.

“Please…” Mean had to bite back inconvenient tears he didn’t want to show, “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t want to eavesdrop. You just thought I was Korean. It’s your mistake. It’s not fair…”

Plan smirked.

“Life’s not fair,” his facial expression relaxed a bit as he spoke, though, causing Mean to exhale silently, too. “But I’m not as bad as people make me out to be.”

The smirk turned into an almost sweet smile.

Almost.

“I’ll give you a _chance_, Teddy Bear,” Plan said softly.

Mean took a deep breath, before he dared to ask what he meant with that.

“You already know that Gun and I are playing a DJ set at the Factory in Lucerne this Saturday,” Plan explained, now all business. “Because it’s Saturday, one of us has to stay here to make sure our room isn’t searched too thoroughly if _someone_ ratted us out to the headmaster. Gun is a coward. He’d rather stay here than go out there alone.”

Plan breathed through and relaxed even more, making Mean automatically lose more of the tension in his body, too.

“Which means...” he continued. “I need someone to come with me, carry equipment, lend me a hand during the gig, and talk to me while I drive on the way home, so I don’t fall asleep at the wheel. If you want to prove yourself to me… you have to sneak out with me. I don’t know, get your roomie Hyunjun to cover for you, and next time, I’ll know you can be trusted not to tattle to the headmaster.”

_No._

Mean frowned.

_Just no._

This was just as dangerous as… he _couldn’t_ afford lose his scholarship.

_Damn it. What to do, what to do…_

“I heard Title wants to go to Lucerne to another concert on Saturday,” Mean suddenly remembered. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Plan rolled his eyes.

“Who said I won’t? But I want you there, too. You’re a dark horse for now, Teddy Bear, you’re on probation with all of us, until we know what to make of you. Prove that you’re trustworthy and I promise I’ll leave you alone after Saturday. No matter what it looks like to you, I’m not actually interested in beef with you. So, what will it be?”

Mean sighed.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You don’t. But… you know, appearances and such.”

Mean exhaled tiredly.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

That’s what it meant, after all, not having a choice.

This was a nightmare.

If they got caught…

Maybe, he could put in a request for a weekend off. Didn’t they tell them during orientation, that each student had four weekends per semester, that they could use to request leave without giving a reason.

He didn’t have a home to go back to… so why not invest it?

They still needed to say where they were going, though. He might make it above board like that, but somehow, he didn’t think it would hold up, if he got caught sneaking off to attend a techno party in Lucerne with Plan.

He would have to think about that, before making a decision.

The thought of using up one of his four precious weekends already on the first week, for something stressful and shady like this, was… not exactly tempting.

In the end, his only solace was that by all accounts, Plan had never been caught sneaking out before… why should it happen now?

Maybe he would be safe, after all.

Alright, if he was going to put his entire future at stake for that blackmailing bastard, he should at least answer some of Mean’s questions.

He straightened his back, and resolutely took a step towards Plan, smiling to himself when he noticed that the other flinched and automatically moved backwards, until he was pressing his back evenly against the door.

_Interesting._

“Can I ask you something?”

“S- Sure.”

Was that insecurity in Plan’s voice?

That was new.

Mean should remember that in the future. His friends had told him in the past, that he could put on a mean glare, if he was determined about something. It was funny to see that it didn’t leave Plan unaffected.

“Why do you say you’re a prisoner here?”

Plan tilted his head, suddenly looking deceptively innocent again.

“Because I am?”

Mean shrugged and subtly crowded the other a bit more.

He couldn’t believe this was working.

“I wasn’t aware that this was a prison.”

“Just for me.”

“Why?”

For a moment, it looked like Plan wasn’t going to answer.

Mean didn’t quite get how the power dynamic in the little broom closet had changed in his favour so quickly, but if he had known that all he needed to do was going on the offensive… well, he would have done that earlier.

Plan sighed.

“I made a stupid mistake four years ago. Ask your buddy Minseok, if you want to know more. I’m sure he’s eager to tell you _all_ about it.”

“He only glares if someone mentions you.”

Plan rolled his eyes.

“Let’s just put it this way…” he said exasperatedly. “I nearly caused a major diplomatic incident between four countries with one stupid action, and now my family thinks that I have to be kept away from _everything_, in a place like this, at the arse-end of nowhere. They say it is a matter of _international security_. How dramatic of them. Just because they don’t trust me not to gain access to top secret documents again.”

_Again?_

Mean’s eyes widened.

Did he mean to say he had done that before?

“Why would you try to gain access to top secret documents?”

“Because I can? For the challenge? And because information should be free, you know. Mistrust authority! Decentralise! Power to the people!”

“So… what? You’re saying you’re principled or something?”

Plan shrugged.

“Sure am,” he said. “I’m a _hacker_. We’re no brutes. We have _ethics_. Still, I shouldn’t have gotten caught back then. I already said it was stupid.”

Mean couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Hacker? Like… Computers?”

Plan nodded.

Wow… that was… as illegal as it was, Mean had to admit that people who could exploit computer systems like that were impressive, in a… criminal kind of way.

“But computers are the easy part,” Plan said dismissively.

Before Mean could ask more, Plan breathed through audibly a few times, and made it clear that the conversation was over.

“Alright, Teddy Bear, as nice as it is talking to you…” he said. “I’ll see you Saturday. I won’t acknowledge you anymore until then. For both our safety. And because I don’t care about your type. Just… Don’t be late, we’ll be on a tight schedule. Gun will give you the details, soon.”

With a fluid movement, Plan slipped away from Mean, pushed open the door behind him, and skidded away silently.

By the time Mean came out of the closet, Plan was nowhere to be seen.


End file.
